Fast and Easy Homemade Laundry Detergent

I shared this last week over at The Frugal Girls. I wanted to share it here, just in case you didn’t catch it on her site.If your like me, you have read other posts about making your own laundry detergent. I read them and I read how the people writing them said it was so easy to make. I didn’t believe them. I guess I am skeptical, but it just seemed like it would be hard or time consuming to make your own laundry detergent.

Of course for me, a project like this requires a call to my best friend to discuss it before actually completing the project, right. Do you do that or is that just me? My best friend had made her own detergent a while ago and had told me how easy it was. I still didn’t believe it. However, I chatted with her for a while about the concept. If you search the internet for laundry detergent recipes, you will find that there are two variations. There is a liquid form or a powdered form. Heidi has shared her liquid version here on The Frugal Girls: How to Make Homemade Laundry Detergent

In discussing things with my best friend, she knows me well, we decided the liquid form was not for me. She said it had to be mixed each time you use it and it can get clumpy. She also said it works really well (she doesn’t even need to use a stain stick!). While I love that it works really well, she is right, cooking your own detergent that needs some mixing each time you use it is not for me. I couldn’t see using my All-Clad to cook laundry detergent and then cook in it again and I didn’t want to buy a pan just for cooking laundry detergent.

I decided to make a powdered form of homemade detergent. I had everything I needed on hand(I finally used the Fels-Naptha my mom gave me when I got married, 13 years ago), so I hung up the phone and proceeded to make a small batch of homemade laundry detergent. Literally 10 minutes later, I was done and back on the phone with my best friend, telling her how crazy easy that was! She of course said something along the lines of, “I told you so.” But what are best friends for, right!?

Here’s what you will need to make your own powdered laundry detergent. I have two versions of this ‘recipe’ in clickable/printable form at the bottom of this post. I have a small batch and a large batch. I started with the small batch because I was chicken and wasn’t sure this was going to work for me. I just finished that batch up and made the large batch. The ingredients are the same either way.

Grate your soap (Fels-Naptha in my case). It will look just like cheese, but it won’t taste like it so don’t eat it…hehe! I thought the soap looked to large and wanted it smaller so I made sure I got equal amounts in each load.

Put your soap in your food processor or blender. Blend to a fine or smaller consistency. Yes, it is fine to use a grater and blender that you will use for food again. Just make sure you wash them well. I thought it was weird and a little gross too, but this detergent is natural (except for the fragrance in the soap) so it won’t harm you.

Note: In the pictures above I was making the small batch and you see I have all the ingredients in the food processor. You don’t need to put everything in the food processor, only the soap. I just did everything the first time. For my large batch, we only processed the soap.

Mix all your ingredients together. If you are making the small batch, just put them in your container and shake. We found that for the large batch, putting all the ingredients in a trash bag and using my hands on the outside of the bag to mix things up worked well. Imagine mixing like you would if you were making shake and bake something, only on a larger scale. I think it would also work if you had a large clean bucket or trash can. You could use some type of large spoon to mix things up. I didn’t have any kind of large spoon, so the trash bag worked well.

Put your laundry detergent in whatever container you plan to use. You are done! That was so easy.

Use 2 tablespoons per load.

We have been using this laundry detergent for a little over a month now. It seems to work as well as what I was using in the past. To be honest, I really can’t tell any difference. I was using the Eco-friendly detergent from Costco in the past.

I started with the small batch. I usually do one load of laundry every day. The small batch lasted me 1 month. I just started using the large batch. I don’t know how long it will last yet. My guess is that it will last about 6 months.

This detergent is low to no suds, so it is safe for HE washing machines.

I still use a stain stick with my laundry. I haven’t been brave enough to see if the detergent would work on it’s own with out my Eco friendly stain stick. If you try it, let me know.

The larger batch cost:

1 box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Powder – $3.15

4lb box of Baking Soda – $2.12

1 box Borax – $3.39

3 bars Fels-Naptha – $2.91

Total for large batch $11.57. If it lasts me my projected 6 months or 180 loads, that will be $0.06 per load! Works for me!

Below you will find the two versions of the detergent. Just click on them to print them out. This is my first time using this recipe plug-in, so if it doesn’t seem to be working, just click over to my new recipe tab. You should be able to click and print from there.

Homemade Powdered Laundry Detergent (Small Batch)

by K Coake @ The Real Thing with the Coake Family (www.realcoake.blogspot.com)

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Keywords: laundry detergent

6031212

Ingredients (about 30 loads of laundry)

6-8 oz. Fels Naptha or other soap

1 Cup baking soda

1 Cup Borax

1 Cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

Instructions

Grate the soap. Put the soap in the food processor or blender and process to a smaller consistency(optional). Add the additional ingredients. Mix.

More to Enjoy! 😍

Comments

i’ve made this in the past but only in a small batch..when i saw the large batch “recipe” i ran out to walmart and got all the stuff and whipped it up in no time. now i have a garbage bag of soap that will probably last me forever lol Thanks!

That was nice to include the small batch because I’ve wanted to try the homemade batch but didn’t want to commit to a huge batch in case I didn’t like it! Do you use a front loader? I just bought a new one and I heard that low suds was the best so I’m anxious to try this out since the HE detergents seem to be most expensive:) thanks for this great recipe

I don’t have a front loader. I have read though that this is low to no suds and is fine to use in HE washers. I did read one place that the powder didn’t work well in the HE, but I only saw that one place. Everywhere else said it was fine. There is a recipe for a liquid version if you feel safer trying that. If you want that, I link to it near the top of this post. It is on the Frugal Girls site. Hope that helps. Thanks for stopping by!

I have made this soap for years, and we have a maytag he front loader. I just add it to the interior (not the dispenser) and it works grrrrrrreat! I also add several drops of essential oil to the entire batch, when I mix it up. Sometimes it is Lavender, sometimes Citrus, always good! Happy Laundry!

🙂 Jumped over from the party on 36th ave….tickled because I just made this last week (almost same recipe except I add some generic oxy clean) and I am happy to see how much money we save by making our own!! I also love how long it lasts with my big family!

I need to stop being lazy and just try making my own detergent. I hear great things about it! I would love to have you come share ‘Your Great Idea’ over at the link party on ‘Or so she says…’, it’s happening right now! Hope to see you there. 🙂 http://www.oneshetwoshe.com

I bet you will be able to find them at Wal-Mart. I rarely shop there because I try to boycott them, however I have had to go there to get some of these ‘ingredients’ as I can’t find them at my usual stores. Hope you can find the things you need. Enjoy!

Thanks so much for sharing this at ‘Your Great Idea’ link party on ‘Or so she says…’! Just wanted to let you know that I’ll be featuring it tomorrow, as one of my two favorite submissions. 🙂 It will also be shared on Pinterest and Facebook. I would love to have you come share again, as well. Have a great day! ~ Mariel http://www.oneshetwoshe.com

I love this recipe, I made the big batch and started using the first week of November, it is now the middle of February and I have about half left. I wash around 10 loads a week. I did not put oxi clean in mine, it tends to fade my nicer tops so I only add to certain loads. Also if you cut the fels naptha into 3 pcs per bar and microwave the 3 pieces for around a minute until all puffed up, if not do 10 seconds at a time till done. let is cool completely and crumble. The kids loved doing this as it crumbles very easily. Then just mix into the rest and use. I did all three bars and let sit till after school, and let the fun begin. lol